


never ask me about my business

by youheldyourbreath



Category: Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mob, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:02:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25881790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youheldyourbreath/pseuds/youheldyourbreath
Summary: “Their Don is some kid named Peter Parker. 33. No previous mob affiliations. He turns 23 and bam! It looks like he just snapped. He gathers a group of affiliates and goes on a spree. Knocking off mob bosses and lower level guys left and right.”Michelle swipes the screen. A grainy picture of a man standing outside of a ShopRite materializes. He is carrying groceries for the older woman next to him. He looks boyish. Michelle asks, “Track and report?"Liz shakes her head, and lays it out clean and simple, “Infiltrate his group. Gain his trust. Find out his end game. And, if necessary, take him out.”
Relationships: Michelle Jones/Peter Parker
Comments: 18
Kudos: 114





	never ask me about my business

**Author's Note:**

> this is an adaptation of an OLD headcanon of mine on tumblr. we have finally adapted it into a full-fledged fic. anything you might see in a mob movie, you might see here. so. if any of that content upsets you, please do not read. 
> 
> ENJOY MY TRASH BABIES!

The Hudson is a cloudy river. It is foggy and filthy enough to drown secrets. Children don't light sparklers on banks of the Hudson in the summer time, and families don't make fond memories on its shores. The Hudson is a watery graveyard that cruelly spits out its victims, floating them to the top of the River like buoys, when the world needs a reminder of how gruesome men can be. 

Michelle remembers growing up on the Hudson. Every Saturday, her teammates would cross the River for their reluctant crew practices in Jersey. The mornings were brutal and the smell of the River was worse. Her senior year, she had been out on the water, wasting away in the humidity, when her oar hit a bloated body that had been churned out from the sodden depths. She remembers the way her scream got caught in her throat as her teammates shouted for help. 

The flash of the cameras. The exhausted looks of the police as they routinely took down her team's statements. The way nothing changed after. The world kept on spinning. Michelle remembers it all. 

When she thinks of home, she tries not to think about the River. 

It is easier to reminisce about the bagels that are practically perfect because of New York water. Home is the jokes she still shares with her high school friends about the commuters that live up in Connecticut with their fancy lawns and country clubs, even though she hasn't lived in the city for ten years. When Michelle thinks of home, she doesn't think about what happens across the River in Jersey. 

She isn't naïve. Michelle knows how the body, the one that felt so malleable against the flat of her oar, got in the water that day. Or, more aptly, _who_ had put it there. 

But she doesn't think about it. 

Those problems, that memory, is miles away from Washington D.C. where the only place it can touch her is in her dreams. 

* * *

"Help me with these," Michelle announces, as she bursts into her shared office, exacerbated. She is locked in a losing battle with four freshly brewed coffees, stacked like precarious building blocks in her hands. Apparently travelers cost extra now. Fucking hipster-ass coffee joint. 

Her officemate, Cindy, swoops in and steals two cups. The two women set the drinks down before Cindy seems to remember, "Oh! Liz wants to see you." 

Michelle gestures to the two spare cups, "These two go to the guys over in research and devo. This one," she lifts the largest cup and takes a satisfying sip, "is for me. And the last is for you." 

Her coworker flashes an appreciative grin. "You absolute gem." 

"So Liz?" 

Cindy shrugs. "Who knows. Apparently she's been here since, like, four this morning."

Michelle's eyebrows crinkle. That isn't unusual, Michelle reassures herself, even as her stomach starts to roll over in dread. There are breakthroughs on cases all the time. The FBI is not nine-to-five. And yet, as she looks down into her latte, something cautious starts to bloom in her gut. Still, she plays it casual. "Any idea what about?" 

"No," she shakes her head. "I was hoping maybe you did." 

Michelle sets her drink down on her desk. "Don't get all up in my caffeine, Moon. I mean it." 

Cindy plays innocent. "Who me?" 

She can't help but laugh. "Yes. _You_." 

* * *

Liz Allen-Toomes' office is tantamount to a fortress. It has more security than God himself and dons a set of double-plated windows that rival the presidential brigade safety measures. In case of attack. It isn't like directors at the FBI are targeted at the office. But it has happened. Better safe than sorry, she remembers one of her training officers remarking when she first arrived on the job.

It had alarmed Michelle, then, but, after a while, the threat of death becomes background noise in a job like this. Michelle barely thinks about it anymore. When she scans herself into the room with her keycard, Liz does not even bother to look up. Michelle thinks if she is desensitized to death, Liz must be at the next level-- complete acceptance. 

"You're from New York," Liz says, finally deciding to address the woman standing at attention in her office. 

Michelle nods, "I am, ma'am." 

"How familiar are you with Jersey?" 

The tumefied, waterlogged body crashes onto the stage of her consciousness. The dread from her office returns in earnest. She forces her voice not to tremble, "Familiar enough."

"There has been a pretty seismic shift in the families over there. We can't seem to pin it down." 

"Families, ma'am?" 

"Mob families." 

The man in the water had barely looked human. His eyes had been bulging out of his skull and wrapped around his neck was a pink shoelace. In her shock, Michelle had thought it looked like something a little girl might tie her shoes with, glittery and feminine. 

Her throat is dry when she repeats Liz dumbly. "Mob families." 

Liz raises her eyebrow coolly, "Yes. Mob families." Her boss walks around the front of her desk and perches on the end of it. Liz moves like a machine. All precision. She folds her hands in her lap. Michelle closes her own into fists at her side. "We have agents scattered throughout the system. The mob scene has been pretty stagnant since the turn of the 20th century. They're a pain in the ass, but mostly they keep their business contained within the families. They make deals with each other. They kill each other. And that suits us fine." 

"But," Michelle anticipates. 

"But," Liz agrees. "But we've had a new family of sorts pop up seemingly over night. We don't know why. This new group doesn't operate under the old rules. They're escalating violence with no pattern. Or at least none we can detect. We usually wouldn't step in. But." 

Her boss rubs her forehead. The exhaustion becomes obvious. Cindy had mentioned something about an early call-in, that Liz had been at the office since four in the morning. 

Michelle frowns. "But some mobster with political influence called in a favor."

Liz says nothing. Her weary eyes say everything.

She grew up in New York. She knows that politicians are dirty and bankrolled by bad men. When she had joined law enforcement, she had known her work was never going to be the absolute pinnacle of justice. After all, she knows the golden rule-- the people with the most gold _rule_. 

But she had hoped, perhaps foolishly, that she might have been able to do some good in the FBI. 

This assignment is a bitter pill to swallow.

She tempers her ticking jaw and asks, “This new family. What's their deal?" 

Liz offers Michelle a tablet. She takes it without question. It is filled with a stream of documents. Her eyes nearly cross as she starts to flip through the intel. There are things here she had not been prepared to see at nine in the morning. “Their Don is some kid named Peter Parker. 33. No previous mob affiliations. He turns 23 and bam! It looks like he just snapped. He gathers a group of affiliates and goes on a spree. Knocking off mob bosses and lower level guys left and right.”

Michelle swipes the screen. A grainy picture of a man standing outside of a ShopRite materializes. He is carrying groceries for the older woman next to him. He looks _boyish_. Michelle asks, “Track and report?" 

Liz shakes her head, and lays it out clean and simple, “Infiltrate his group. Gain his trust. Find out his end game. And, if necessary, take him out.”

Michelle glances back down at the data pad. He doesn’t look particularly dangerous. In fact, one of his eyebrows is kind of fluffy. It makes him look ridiculous. 

Sweet but ridiculous. 

Her turns to the next picture. She is sucker punched by the image. It is if her chest is weighed down by something gnarly and heavy. It steals her breath. There, in black and white, Michelle sees the full breadth of this Peter Parker's cruelty. 

There is not much left of the man in the picture. But what remains reminds Michelle of that day on the River. 

* * *

She has coworkers in D.C. Not friends. So, her goodbyes are not hard. 

She gets a few days to pack up her meager belongings and manages to grab dinner with Cindy before she goes undercover. It is unsurprisingly impersonal. Friendships are hard to maintain in a job like this one. 

When she arrives in the little community of Queenstown, she is struck by the state of it. The little town outside of Trenton looks like it stopped evolving in 1962. There is one long street that runs through the center of town. It is littered with family-owned businesses and pizzerias. There is a charming bakery next to the town pharmacy. 

The bakery is where she is supposed to begin. 

Peter Parker has patterns, Liz had told her back at base. She knows he starts every morning with a visit to the bakery. Inside, he picks up a dozen donuts. All glaze sticks. From there, he returns to his house. The FBI doesn't know what happens inside. Then, each night he goes to his Aunt May’s apartment and brings her a coffee. Vanilla latte with two Splenda. But from there, his night time routine varies.

It is never pretty. 

But the bakery is where she is going to make contact.

She spends two weeks starting her morning the same way Peter Parker does. She goes to bakery. She is struck by how, in person, he is shorter than she expected. She is more surprised by how he tips the girl behind the counter four dollars every day. He talks congenially with the men in the shop. At a distance, he seems like a _good_ guy. 

If she squints she can almost see the grit, the shark teeth, underneath that dazzling smile.

When she wakes up on day fifteen, she decides it is time to make contact. The night before she had dreamt of the River. This place was bringing it all back. 

Her ties her red hair up in a messy knot on the top of her head and heads to the bakery. Liz had suggested the red. It was better to feel like someone entirely different in the field. When she looks in the mirror before she leaves, she feels different, too. 

When she arrives at the bakery, she opens her book and pushes open the door with her hip. Michelle takes two steps and tumbles into her mark. "Oh!" She cries out. 

Peter Parker steadies her with both hands. His warm palms keep her upright. And his eyes are striking. Focused and intense. 

Some kind of look passes through those eyes. Before she can search them further, he closes off. "Are you okay?" He asks as he sets her right. 

She brushes some fallen curls out of her eyes. "Yeah. Sorry. I wasn't paying attention." She lifts her book. "Too into my book." 

His eyes track the title and they sparkle in delight. "Red Rising. I love that book. Its one of my favorites." 

She pretends she doesn't know that, as if she hasn't hoarded little facts about him in her research. "I'm not super far into it. But its fun." 

"I've seen you in here before," he says, pivoting the conversation. "Are you new in town?" 

Michelle cradles her book into her chest. "Can you tell?" 

Peter smiles conspiratorially. She imagines it would be charming if she didn't know the monster lurking beneath that smile. "Just a bit." 

"I'm starting my residency at the hospital here. So, you know, coffee and donuts are basically essential to my survival." 

He offers his hand. "I'm Peter Parker."

She ducks her book under her arm and shakes his hand. "Mary Jane Watson. But my friends call me MJ."

His lip quirks. "Mary Jane?"

She lifts her finger, as if to chastise him, and playfully says, "Don't. I have heard every joke you could possibly imagine. There is nothing you can say that I haven't heard before."

"I was going to say its a pretty name." 

She grabs a glaze stick, his favorite, and tips the girl at the counter. He watches on, stupefied, as she makes her exit. Just before she leaves, she smiles over her shoulder and says, "It was nice meeting, Mr. Parker."

“Peter,” he enthusiastically calls after her. “Call me, Peter.”

* * *

The bakery is the perfect infiltration point. She spends the next nine days running into Peter at the bakery. 

Each night she reviews the steady stream of intel she gets from the agency. In the time she has touched down in Queenstown, Peter Parker and his associate have killed two men. He dumps them in the Hudson after. She always dreams about the floating man whenever news comes in. 

The bakery is not the River. It smells too much like vanilla to be something sinister. She has to actively remind herself that the Peter Parker from her briefings is the same man as the boy in the bakery who tips the counter girl. There is no difference. 

But on day nine, something shifts.

He greets her the same as everything morning, “Hello, MJ.”

She makes a show of gnawing on her bottom lip. He follows the motion with his eyes. "Mr. Parker," she replies.

There is a ripple of amusement that rolls off of him. “When are you going to call me Peter?”

“When we’re friends." She grabs her coffee.

He holds the foil wrapped donut she ordered hostage. “And friends. Would you say they get dinner together?”

_Got him._

"I would say that sounds like a date." She tries to steal back her donut. He keeps it just out of her reach. 

"Well, if you insist,” he grins. 

She schools her expression to even out into something soft, something perfectly unassuming. “You don’t know me.”

"But I want to,” he says. And the kicker is, she senses he is serious. He wants to know Mary Jane. And Mary Jane would be so charmed by this man. His floofy eyebrow is even out in full form today. It sticks up in every which direction.

“No, you don’t."

The expression he takes on is formidable. It is the look of a man who knows what he wants. And what he wants is _her_. 

She should be thrilled. He is her mission, but the sinking feeling of dread she felt in her office that morning returns in full force. It feels like foreboding.

“Why not?”

"Because." 

"Because?"

Mary Jane is an exasperated, darling sort of girl. Michelle manages a befuddled pout in her skin. "Because. Because I'm a resident. I work long hours. And besides, we've only known each other for, like a week."

“A week and a half,” he breezily corrects her.

The girl Mary Jane frowns. "You don’t want to date me.”

“Sure, I do,” he smiles. He nearly gives her back her donut, but as she reaches for it, he snatches it away. 

She squints at him. Mary Jane takes the time to assess the man before her. Michelle already knows exactly who she is dealing with. "You aren't going to take no for an answer, are you?" 

He has the audacity to smile. "Afraid not." 

"Lunch. You have to _earn_ dinner." 

"Dinner it is." 

Mary Jane laughs, girlish and ever exasperated. "No. Lunch." 

"Fine," he says. His smile eats up his face. "Lunch." 

* * *

That night Peter Parker and his friends kill another man. The mark was an unsavory character. But he was a politician’s son. 

And so, Liz tells her, the entire mission has changed. 

* * *

Their lunch date is at some small diner at the center of town. Like everything in Queenstown, it has more character and history than any shitty hipster spot she was forced to patronize in D.C. Michelle can see how someone could live a happy, uncomplicated life here. 

Save one thing.

Peter pulls out her chair. Mary Jane rolls her eyes. After all, Mary Jane is a strong, independent doctor. _Silly, Peter Parker_.

Michelle tracks the two conspicuous sets of men holed up at tables nearby. They are the least discreet body guards in the entire world. From her vantage point, she can clearly ID each man. She knows their names, their wives names, their addresses. Everything. 

The who is not the problem on this job. It is the why. 

Why did the violence begin and why won't it end?

Halfway through lunch, he makes her laugh. Not Mary Jane. _Michelle_. She snorts like she might have done in middle school and she cannot understate her mortification. She smothers her mouth with her hand and Peter has the gall to look outrageously delighted. Like her laughter is some precious thing. 

"Shut it." 

He raises his hands in his defense. "I didn't say anything."

"Your face said enough."

Peter grins wildly. "It was cute." His smile is warm. It makes her feel warm. 

"You're stupid," she says, all Michelle.

"And you're adorable."

His confidence stuns her silent. Nothing seems to ruffle him. She has never had a mark so unabashedly secure before. It is not normal. "Have I earned that dinner yet?" 

"People who make fun of my snort don't deserve dinner."

"I did not!" He teases her right back. "I said it was cute."

"Snorts are not cute." She tosses a fry at his head.

"I stand by it." 

It isn't until long after their date is over that she realizes she had forgotten to play Mary Jane at all. 

* * *

It takes another lunch and two movie dates to earn him a dinner. By then, she has been in Queenstown for two months. The body count has risen to five. She forces herself to look at the pictures. She doesn't want to forget who she is dealing with in the haze of popcorn fights and childish hand holding.

She hasn't let him kiss her yet. Every time he tries she sees the bodies. 

* * *

When he finally takes her to dinner, it is at the same little diner they went to lunch. There are only so many establishments in Queenstown. And Peter Parker is a creature of habit. He likes the places he knows. It is on their dinner date she realizes he probably likes routine because he can anticipate better in environments he is familiar with. He has a target on the back of his head. 

She wears a blue dress. He arrives in a button-up shirt rolled up to the elbows. She spends too much time staring at him like she is afraid her ruse is working. Like he may actually like her.

And he does. She knows he does.

He walks her to her door at the end of the night and something, that feeling from the office, returns. She knows before he even tries that he wants to kiss her. She sees it in the shadows of his eyes and she realizes she is scared. When she trembles, it isn't a Mary Jane affectation. It is true terror. 

He encloses her wrist gently in his fist. "Mary Jane?" 

“Goodnight, Peter,” she tries to say, but it comes out like a squeak. Somehow, in her lame attempt to reply, he has stolen into her space. He is all but a breath away from her. He dominates every sense. Smell. Touch. She wonders what he would taste like.

If she closes her eyes, she knows what is waiting there. The dead man floating in the River. She is about to kiss a murderer. She is a federal agent. And she is about to kiss a killer.

She doesn’t want to.

She doesn't want to want to.

Michelle is so close to him that his floofy eyebrow is just a blob of messy hair. She is falling, falling, _falling_ into the moment.

"We’ve been on four dates."

He ruins it.

And she remembers.

She can't believe she nearly let herself forget. Michelle pushes him away. “And that means I should let you kiss me?”

His jaw slackens. “What? No. Mary Jane. That’s not what I-”

Fear grips her tighter. “That's what it sounded like."

She is fleeing from this moment. Some fucking agent she is. 

His confusion smacks him across the face. He is very good at masking his emotions, but she can see how deeply she has wounded him. How her running from this moment is not what he expected. Not after donuts and her snort on their first date and the way she had shoved an entire fist full of popcorn into his mouth when he kept talking during the second movie date. 

She doesn't want to kiss him. She is terrified of what is waiting for her on the other end of that experience. And so, thrown, flustered and terrified, she does some supremely stupid. "I’ve heard things about you.”

His eyes darken. Her heart stops. "What things?" He grinds his teeth on those two words. 

She sees him then. The don. _The mobster._

Michelle defaults on her training. It isn't a perfect transition. She stands before him a beat too long. Her eyes are filled with real fear, but not because he is a dangerous man. She has known dangerous men. Peter Parker is not scary because of what he can _do_. He is scary because of what he makes her _feel_. 

"People say you're dangerous."

He seems to inspect her. He is searching for any kind of crack.

She stands her ground. He will not find one. If they are playing chess, the next moment will reveal who is ahead. 

They stare at each other. She holds her breath. 

"Mary Jane, whatever you’ve heard--”

“Tell me you’re not. You’re not everything they say you are.”

His voice is steel. “I’m worse.”

“I can't do this,” she quakes. It is as good as the truth. She goes for her door again but he grabs her hand and interlocks their fingers. She smothers the supernova that flares in her stomach. She has no room for something as trivial as feelings. There is no room for anything in this job, not even friends, but especially not _this_. Whatever _this_ is. 

“I like you.” It is all he says.

“You scare me a little."

"I’m scary,” he admits. “But I…I would never hurt you.”

Mary Jane is gentle. It is her who asks, “Are you in trouble with the law or something?” 

As soon as the words fly out of her mouth, she wishes she could take them back. This moment is so delicate. Any misstep could be deadly. She asked too bluntly. If he was not suspicious before, he is now. It colors every twitch in his face. It pulls his mouth down in a frown.

The man before her finally matches her intel. She has seen him with his Aunt May. She knows he tips his waitresses well. He visits her at the hospital that she is posing to be a doctor in and laughs with the nurses on duty. The Peter she knows reads to kids at the local library. Over the last few months, she has learned and harbored a softness for every dumb detail on her mark. But now, she sees _him_. 

“Don’t ask me about my business,” he whispers.

“Peter--”

“Don’t ask me about my business.”

Michelle takes a risk. 

"Then _we_ have no business.”

She steps back and closes the door in his face.

The sound is deafening.

* * *

When she tells Liz about the night of their dinner date, her boss explodes. Michelle had practically been in the door, and she closed it in his face. If her gamble didn't work, all of her progress was as good as dust. 

She tells Liz that Peter cares about her. That it will be five days tops before he is knocking down her door begging her to give him a second chance. He will be desperate, she says, and will propel her into the fold. Only when she is completely integrated into the family can the real work can begin.

Five days, she promises. 

She is wrong. 

It takes four.

He shows up after one of her fake shifts at the hospital with flowers. She raises her eyebrow. He lamely raises the bouquet in his hand. “I, uh, have flowers.”

“So I see,” she drawls.

“And answers.”

She has never hated being good at her job more. 

* * *

She came to New Jersey for answers. She is good at her job. She is playing him, she tells herself as they make their way back to her apartment in silence. She does not care. She remembers the man in the River. Peter had added to that watery grave. He is its grounds keeper. 

The sooner she gets answers the sooner she can get home. To her life. Queenstown and the cozy diner and worn down movie theatre and the twelve pizzerias all on one block are not her life. It will be a brief interlude in her late twenties that she never thinks about again when this is all over. 

She unlocks her door, making him wait a moment, as she grabbles for fortitude, and then steps aside to invite him in. Michelle plays at nerves as Mary Jane. It is not a stretch to project those feelings. "Want some coffee?” He leaves his stoic mask at the door. He looks so plainly relieved that she is talking to him at all that she has to look away.

“I would love some.”

She goes to the kitchen and puts on a pot of coffee. She busies herself with the process. On the other side of the counter, Peter paces back and forth. He stops every so often like he is about to speak before he picks up his gate again.

When the coffee is finally brewing, she leans against her fridge and waits. He does not stop pacing. The words tumble out of him with uncharacteristic somberness. “You have to. What you have to understand. The truth is. The truth is I'm not a bad person."

She smarts, "Stellar start.”

“Mary Jane,” he sighs. “Its complicated.”

"Try me.”

She has to remind herself that he doesn't know her. Not really. He barely knew Mary Jane before this all went spiraling out of control. They have never kissed. They have been on four dates, the fourth of which ended in disaster. Yet the way he is looking at her, the intensity of it, the frightening recognition of something in her that she cannot see, she knows he is going to tell her the truth. Maybe not all of it. But it will be enough to get her foot in the door. 

“I have powerful friends," he starts. The coffee maker goes off. She fills two hot cups and hands one off to him. He blows on it while she waits. "And I leverage those friendships to help my family.”0

Mary Jane slowly pieces together what he is saying. Michelle already knows. She cuts through the bullshit, “Illegal business.”

He sips his coffee. “Illegal business.”

“Mob business,” she pushes.

His features are a stormy calm, like he is restraining his nature with will alone. "It doesn’t make any difference to me what a person does for their business. For instance, I don’t care that you’re a doctor.”

"You know that’s different.” 

"Perhaps," he muses. He takes another sip of his coffee. Black. He hasn't bothered to add any sugar or milk to it. He likes it bitter. 

She worries her lip and something softens in him. She sees the weakness she inspires in him. "I don’t want any trouble,” she lies. She would welcome a bit of trouble.

Peter suddenly turns severe. "I would never let you anybody hurt you.”

"You can’t guarantee that,” she says. It is a probes, challenge to make him say something damning. Anything he says now can and will be held against him. He is her job. she wants to hear him say it.

He falls into the trap without much fight. It almost disappoints her that he is not more intuitive. "If anybody that tried to hurt you, I would make them disappear. You’ll be safe.”

Michelle knows in his mind his declaration is supposed to be romantic. He is pledging himself to her, the girl he met three months ago in a bakery, but the intent of his words does not stop the shiver that ripples through her. The terror. Peter Parker is the kind of man takes promises seriously. Deadly seriously.

After all, she has read his file a hundred times. 

She swallows all of these bubbling feelings, the ones that could choke her if she allows herself to tip over into the abyss, and she acts like the professional that she was sent here to be. Michelle lowers her coffee cup and Peter watches her, stalking his prey. She crosses the room until they are nose to nose. Her eyes flicker between his mouth and his eyes, and she can tell he is strung out like a rope waiting to snap. “Okay, then,” she whispers before she kisses him.

She had fleetingly thought about their first kiss in the weeks leading up to this moment. Michelle had expected an ordinary kiss, like one she had indulged in hundreds of times. But as she slants her mouth over his, she learns that Peter Parker is anything but ordinary. Their mouths meet for one delicious breath before he sighs into her parted lips and it escalates like a run away train. 

The flat surface of his palm snatches at the back of her head, holding firm to her curls, and he plunders her mouth with kisses. She can't breathe or think or possibly even stand. Her flighty hands scramble for purchase, searching for a place to safely rest her hands, when they stumble backward. He traps her against her fridge. The surface is shockingly cold and he is blazing hot. The stark contrast is not lost on her. 

He wedges his knee between her open legs and presses against her heat. It is a silent request to use his leg for her pleasure. She is too out of her mind, completely transported by this terrible man, to stop herself from rubbing up on the offered thigh. It goes a long way in taking the edge off of her sudden, blazing need. 

"Mary Jane." His voice is aggravated and feverish, like he cannot quite decide what he wants to do to her. Something appalling, she hopes. His teeth tear at her bottom lip and she keens. “Its like I’ve been waiting for you. Forever.”

“Shut up,” she shakes her head, and drags his mouth to hers, effectively shutting him up.

He hauls her body up the fridge so her feet dangle slightly off the ground. Like a ragdoll, he maneuvers her so that her legs are tightly wound around his waist. She squeezes him tightly to feel his growing length. The feeling delights her. 

"Not so tight," he orders. "I wanna touch you." And then, he does. He shoves his hand down her panties and finds her wet and wanting. She must be excellent at her job, the only still functioning part of her brain, reasons, as he sinks a finger into her wet heat. He meets no resistance. 

She presses her warm face against the cold fridge, like it might help even out her rising temperature, but not even that is going to slow down what they have started. 

"I want to eat you out," he uses his free hand, the one that was buried in her curls, to close around her jaw. He guides her chin upward and lavishes kisses on her neck. Her eyes cross. "But I wanna fuck you, too. I've wanted to fuck you for weeks now." 

Even with his finger lodged inside of her and his hand on her jaw, she feels the prickle of impatience. He is doing a lot of talking about fucking her but talking is not fucking. She growls, "Stop talking about it and do it." 

She is still wearing her shitty scrubs from the hospital. They are not the sexiest clothes to take off, but Peter does not look like he minds. He nearly rips the seam of her top when he yanks it over her head in his eagerness. 

It gets thrown into the ether but she damns the shirt as Peter drops her back to her feet. She nearly roars with anger until he drops to his knees. He hooks her one leg over each shoulder and her back skirts back up the fridge. It is all happening so quickly that she barely gets out a, "What the hell," before his mouth falls on her clit and her back bows off the cold surface.

He reaches for her hands and guides them to his hair, silently asking her to pull at the ends. She complies and tugs.

His mouth and tongue are as wicked as the man it belongs to, and Michelle curses bad men. She pants as a second finger is sunk into her body. He pushes it in and out of her, drawing on the slickness to hasten his pace. Pretty soon all she can feel is the steady rhythm of his fingers and the clever tongue that draws out her cries. 

It builds surprisingly fast. One minute she is yanking on his hair, crying out his name or maybe even cursing it, and the next her mouth is snapping open in a silent cry as she trips into toe-curling ecstasy. 

Even then, he is not done. He laps at her still, even as she starts to shake from his ministration, and only when he decides does he gently lower her to the floor.

Her feet sprawl open on the ground and she wants to toss something at his smug head as he wipes his mouth clean of her juices. The cold of the fridge slowly brings her back to her body enough to scowl. “What?” he crows, his chin is still shiny.

She almost says something else, but it is easier to live in this moment, the heat of them together longer, than to return to her mission. “You promised,” she reminds him, reaching for his pants.

"Later,” he nearly chokes.

“No, now,” she insists. She hauls herself into his lap and pulls open his jeans enough to yank him free. He is already hard. And she has a crazy, wild, stupid thought that she would like to wrap her lips around him. But she buries it for later. Now she wants him. 

She is already so wet and ready that he hilts into her without much effort. It is a snug fit, but the stretch makes her mouth water. He palms at her stomach, the soft divots there, and she thinks she wants him to be rough with her. She can take it. 

Michelle gasps, swirling her hips, as she tries to set a pace. And her hands fly up to his face, dragging the fleshy side of her fingertips down his cheeks. "Yes," she whispers. His hands circle her waist, positioning her body slightly, and with surprising ease he starts to bounce her on his cock. With his help, she hits some place new. "Yes," she says, more loudly.

Peter smirks. "You're doing so well. Fuck. Look at you." He ruts into her in earnest and the echo of slapping skin fills her kitchen. Her nails bite at his cheeks and he palms her ass possessively. She is barely in control of how her body moves as Peter fucks up into her shaking body. They will tear each other apart, the pair of them, and the descent down will be the best Michelle has ever had. 

A jagged cry crawls out from the depths of her body as she falls apart. He continues to slide her up and down, searching for his own release, as she crumbles through her aftershocks, before Peter finally follows after. There is a frenzy to his movement before it finally ends in a snap. The final jerk of his hips makes her orgasm trip deliciously. She emits a little satisfied squeak. 

They collapse on the shitty tile in a heap and Michelle stares up at the ceiling. Lost in the deep end of her mission. 

* * *

Later, when they are laying wrapped up on her couch, half naked and sated, she whispers, “Are you in the mob?”

He winds some of her red hair around his finger thoughtfully. He kisses the top of her head and the man from earlier remains in shades of his actions. “Don’t ask me about my business.”

“Don’t tell me it doesn’t matter. It matters.”

“Its not personal,” he reminds her. “Its just business.”

She hoists herself up on one elbow and gazes down at him. He looks surprisingly docile for a murderer in the post-coital glow. "I don't want secrets, Peter. I want to know who I am sleeping next to every night."

“MJ--.”

"I can't pretend I'm fine with secrets. I'm not. I can't pretend its not different now."

He waits for a long moment before asking a question she can tell he dreads. “Bad different?”

"I haven’t decided yet,” she answers. And that answer is as much Michelle as it is Mary Jane.

He rolls her over on her back and fucks her like he is trying to convince her to stay. Like if he were somehow precious or gentle with her she would slip away. Like a display of power is the only way he knows how to protect the people he loves.

And, like before, she gives as good as she gets. She scratches her nails down his back and bites at his shoulder and cries his name when he asks her to say it. 

This is wrong. This is sinful. He is a bad man. But when they are like this she can almost forget. 

* * *

The next morning they go to the bakery together. He is in clothes from the night before and his hand is heavy on the small of her back. The girl behind the counter smiles and wordlessly hands them two glaze sticks.

This is how she enters the fold. 

It is a gradual thing, of course. She spends evenings Peter, after shifts at the hospital, and eventually he introduces her to his Aunt. May is kind of amazing. She tries to teach Michelle how to cook and she burns the sauce. Peter laughs for what feels like a half hour until Michelle flicks the sauce at his head. He only laughs harder. 

May even asks Michelle out when Peter isn't around, like the older woman likes keeping her company. It is such a warm and unfamiliar feeling-- being wanted. 

She forces herself to remember the body she found in the River. 

But as the air starts to crisp and they date longer, it gets harder to focus on that memory. It fades away, like maybe it was always meant to sink back to the bottom of the Hudson.

In December, Peter drives her up into the City and they hold hands while the tree is lit. He even indulges her in some Christmas shopping for the girls at the hospital and a few things for May. He steals sips from her hot chocolate and she squints at him in mock displeasure. He grins so widely, so boyishly, so sweetly, that she thinks winter is his season. He shines. 

Liz and the rest of her team at base don't care about Christmas. They press her for substantial information, but the job is slow going. She finds all she can positively supply is how messy Peter's hair looks when she runs her fingers through it and how he likes to nip at her fingers when she steals his desert at dinner. But she doesn't offer those details. They don't seem relevant to her mission. 

When pushed, Michelle insists she is gaining his trust. She will be with him and his entire crew at Christmas. The entire operation will be under one roof. It will be the opportune time to mine for information.

She hates that she knows she is right.

* * *

Christmas Day at the Parker house is a frantic affair. There are people packed into every nook and cranny. There are cousins, as Peter introduces them but she suspects are not blood relations, cooking in the kitchen and exchanging gifts and shouting from the moment she arrives. It is stifling, but in the warm way she used to hear people talk about the holidays.

Michelle never had such a chaotic, loved space to call home for Christmas.

It feels strange that the large house should feel so intimate and cozy when the exterior is austere. The black gates and guards make for a more severe picture. Yet, the house is anything but. It smells like Italian food. 

"I brought some desert," she finally manages to say when she has him alone for more than a moment. "But it doesn't seem like you need it." 

He tips his head back and laughs. These people, this holiday, makes him look so unburdened. He is sustained by the people in this home. A family of sorts, Liz had said in her briefing. “No. But I'm glad you're here.” He leans forward to kiss her and her lips curl up into a smile when their mouths meet. 

A booming voice from across the room whoops. "Aw Peter! Tell that girl you love her with allllll your heart.” Michelle wants to scowl, but the whole room laughs. It is not a demeaning kind of laughter, but the fond kind. Their laughter is with them, not at them. 

Peter takes the laughter in stride and wraps his arm around her. “This, my friends, is Mary Jane.” The room cheers. 

If this is the underworld, she never expected it to be so _cozy_.

She is introduced to easily a hundred people before dinner. They all welcome her with open arms. She knows why. Peter trusts her and so, so do they. She almost forgets that they are criminals.

_Almost_.

* * *

She almost forgets until, at dinner, Ned, Peter's righthand man, approaches him and whispers something in his ear. The news makes his entire body language shift. One moment he is laughing with his friends and the next his eyes are hazy and elsewhere. He nods to Ned and makes to stand but not before dropping a distracted kiss on her cheek. “I’ll be back,” he mumbles.

She watches him as he goes and thinks, that man, that strange and complex man, has the kiss of death. She pities whoever is waiting for him on the other side. 

Michelle spends the rest of dinner talking with his guests, but her mind is elsewhere, perhaps with Peter and whatever ill deed he is committing on Christmas.

Only when May stands up and starts to sing does Michelle feel herself shocked out of her melancholy. The tune is an old Italian folk song that everyone seems to know whether they are Italian or not. And when they start to clap along, it sounds like the rushing pulse of her heartbeat.

* * *

Her eyes find Peter when he returns. His sleeves are rolled up to the elbow and he looks grave. She wordlessly reaches for his hand and he squeezes her fingers.

She does not dare ask.

* * *

In his bedroom, he distractedly sorts through his closet, looking for a shirt for Michelle to wear, when Michelle hears Liz's voice echo at the back of her mind. She had promised her that Christmas would be the perfect time to mine for information. She had let the whole day slip by without so much as one leading question.

So, she asks, “What happened?”

Peter does not answer her. He tosses her a shirt for bed and starts to roll down the sleeves of his own shirt. Her eyes catch the cuffs. She sees the red spattering the white. "Peter,” she breathes.

He looks down at his sleeves and does not acknowledge the splatter. He shirks off his shirt. “I’m sorry for leaving during dinner.”

“What happened?” she repeats firmly.

He takes off his two rings and drops them in the dish beside the bed. Thunk. Thunk. "We had a problem. I fixed it.” He sits on the edge of his bed and starts to unlace his shoes.

She climbs behind him, wrapping her arms around his middle as she kisses the shell of his ear. He rests his hands over hers and sighs. “Talk to me,” she implores.

“I want to keep you out of it,” he says.

“I’m here. I'm already in it." 

He props back against her and uses her body to keep his body upright. It is like he might fall apart without her and for the first time since she began this operation all those months ago she feels cruel. 

“I wasn’t always like this,” Peter says. She feels her heart clench. She nearly spins him around to silence him with kiss. She does not want to know. Now that she is here, at the edge of her mission, she is not ready to take the leap. _Be quiet_ , she almost hisses. _Please don't speak._

"I’m not bad. Or well. I wasn't always bad." She squeezes him tightly and buries her nose between his shoulder blades. She is bracing herself for the end. She wants to hold on a little longer. "My Uncle Ben was a scientist. Prescription drugs. He discovered something, a fluke, in the lab one day. It would have made cocaine look like Tylenol. I was, _god_ , twenty-two…twenty-three? And I dunno, the mob families have eyes everywhere, they found out about his accident. Someone showed up at his job and told him they wanted to work with him. He, uh, said no." 

Michelle clutches him tighter. She knows her knuckles must be light from the effort. For his part, Peter doesn't comment on the intensity with which she holds him. He keeps talking. "He knew what that drug would do to kids on the streets. People would die. It was an accident. He didn't really know how he had cracked it, so it couldn't be replicated. He destroyed what he had made-- and they killed him. 

Peter chuckles darkly. "Destroyed him, actually."

She isn't sure if she wants to know anymore. She suddenly cannot get the image of that man from the River out of her mind. It has been weeks since she has thought of him, floating there in the Hudson, but now she cannot stop seeing him. She closes her eyes. 

"They broke into my aunt and uncles house. I dunno. Fifteen men? They beat May until she passed out and then dragged Ben out of his bed screaming for her. Then, they took him to some secret place. They cut him apart. Piece by piece. And beat him with the pieces they severed. Finally, they stabbed him in the throat. Just to make sure he was really dead. Not slice. Stabbed. Like gutting some animal."

"When they found his body bloated and blue in the Hudson a week later, he didn’t even look like himself. May was still recovering. So I had to go down to the morgue to identify him." She can see it so clearly. A younger Peter, one with a different life ahead of him, staring down at the body from the River, one not dissimilar to the man that haunted her dreams. "I remember standing there, looking down at Ben, and I decided I wouldn't let sleeping dogs lie." 

“How do you know all of this?” She struggles to ask.

"Because,” he says coldly. She cannot see his eyes and she is glad. “I found the men who were in that warehouse that night and tortured them until they gave me every horrible detail. So I would never forget. And then, I killed them. Well. Most of them. Its a work in progress. These men are protected by powerful people." 

It all shatters open. She now knows why he started and what his end goal looks like. All of this violence does have a pattern. It is because of Ben Parker. 

She starts to shake and she knows he notices because she is cradling him in her arms. But she can’t help it. There is an evil part of her that understands why this all has happened and why it will continue to happen. The same part wants the men who killed his uncle to suffer, too. Her badge be damned.

The treacherous thought surges through her like a wildfire burning away all of her common sense.

“Peter, I have something to tell you,” she quakes.

He does not turn to look at her. He stays stationary in her arms as his words swing the ax, “I know.”

Her heart rate fastens. “You know.” 

"I know, **_Michelle_**.” 

She drops her hands from his body at once and scrambles away from the bed. In her haste, she backs herself into the wall. He is between her and the doorway. Peter takes his time, standing patiently and predatory, before he says, “Did you think I didn’t?” He flexes his fingers that were painted with blood hours ago. "Please don’t mistake my not drawing attention to you being a federal agent to me being blind. I'm not stupid.”

In lieu of a direct escape, she starts to scan the room and take stock of what around could be used as a weapon. She looks at Peter again. She will need an effective weapon. He sighs. “You’re not going to attack me, MJ.”

She narrows her eyes and says, “Oh yeah?”

“Yes,” he says with crystal clear certainty. He says that word with more confidence than anything she has ever felt in her life. He cracks his neck. "Right. How do you wanna do this?”

Her mouth dries. She tries to remain in control, even as it violently slips out of reach. "What do you mean?" 

"I mean, I'm not going to let you bring this operation down, Michelle." He raises his eyebrow, as if to challenge her. "I mean, you met them all today. There are good people who work for me. People who have been burned by the same five families." He takes a cautious step toward her, with his palms raised, and continues to say, "I love you, but I can't let you steal their justice.”

“So what?” she snarls. "What are you saying? That everybody that works for you has an Uncle Ben? That they want revenge and you help them get it? Like some fucked up Robin Hood?"

He bears his teeth. It is too savage to be a smile. "I'm the Don." 

The smile dissolves when he offers her his hand. "Please, MJ. You know what the FBI is doing isn't right." 

"I can’t,” she reasons.

His face flickers with nothing short of sorrow. “Michelle, please.”

"I'm a United States Federal Agent.”

He cracks. "Look me in the eye and tell me the government cares about mob politics. We both know they don’t. I'm willing to bet someone within the mob financed your operation. The system is corrupt. There is no justice for people unless they **make it.** ”

Michelle stares at him like he is offering her a world of grey when this morning it had all been black and white. “Michelle, I love you." His eyes flint. "Please don't take sides against me. I couldn't bear it. I promised you I would never let anybody hurt you. Help me keep that promise." 

"So, what," she nearly spits. "You'll kill me?"

"Never." He maintains unblinking eye contact. He is focused only on her. It makes her stomach twist with fear or anticipation. "But you know they will. They'll kill you for blowing your cover. If you go back to them, I won't be able to keep you safe. Pick us. Pick me." 

"They won't," she says weakly.

"They will." He stares at her. Waiting. "You know they will. _Please, Em. Please._ " 

She feels more like herself than ever before when she takes his hand. It is her choice. At last. Hers. 

So, she does not fight the desperate way he nearly sobs into her mouth when their lips crash together in a kiss. She allows him to crowd her back into his bed and he is so painfully soft with her. She had never noticed the anger in their lovemaking before now. All along he had been working through her lies when their bodies converged. There is nothing but the truth between them now and Peter is different.

He strips her clothes off with unfettered dedication. He kisses each new patch of exposed skin and runs his tongue along her curves. He tastes the salt in her sweetness and she is pliant to his ministrations in a way like never before. It is like being seen, truly seen, by him. She hadn't realized how much she mourned how much Mary Jane had of Peter.

Now, he belongs entirely to Michelle. 

Peter does not bury his head between her legs and make her beg for him now. He kisses down her thighs and calves, and drops indulgent kisses on the tips of her toes. She lays back and stares at the canopy overhead and her eyes summon hundreds of thousands of stars. All glittering and glowing.

When he makes his way up her body with his mouth, his exploring fingers dip inside of her and knock at the door of toe-curling pleasure. She lets him inside and allows him to ravage her senses with sweet words and even sweeter kisses.

He adds a third finger and she cries his name in release. His name bounces around her head like a ringing concert hall. The acoustics are sublime in her imagination.

As their skin cools, he slides his hand into hers and squeezes her fingertips tightly. He whispers against her mouth in a lazy kiss, “I would burn down the world for you.”

“I never asked you to,” she curls into his arms.

“I would, though,” he repeats fiercely. "I love you."

To prove it, he shows her how much. With each snap of his hips, she sees a whole new world. She sees justice. She sees flowers by Ben Parker's grave. 

And when they tumble past the point of no return, Michelle clings to salvation, forgiveness, love, _this_.

* * *

The next morning, the friendly faces from Christmas Day are more solemn. They call her Michelle without instruction. 

Peter throws his feet up on his desk and lights a cigar. He makes the people gathered wait. Ned stands at his side as Michelle watches from the shadows of the room. She sees him, all of him, in every unsavory shade and hue, now, and she is not afraid. She is _learning_. 

Peter's eyes catch her over the smoke and he smiles, "Shall we begin?"


End file.
